Pages of Life
by Mystical Authoress
Summary: Modern AU, set in the same universe as 'Stupid Novels and Storytelling.' A collection of oneshots of our Last Story characters in a Modern AU setting...filled with random craziness and the like, because that's just life.
1. Fried Chicken and Health Concerns

**Author note: I do not own the Last Story...or any of the characters...**

**So, this is basically my Modern AU take on the characters, in the same universe as the oneshot 'Stupid Novels and Storytelling.' There will be OCs put in this fic later on, I will warn you, but only five. Hopefully. XD**

**Warning: randomness, craziness, swearing, violence, various pairings**

**Constructive Criticism would be great, and I hope that you read, review and enjoy! Thanks! XD **

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_**Pages of Life**_

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_Fried Chicken and Health Concerns_

Summary: In which Callista doesn't want to eat the fried chicken, and Zesha and Zepha are trying to persuade her. Sadly, this ends up with a crotch-kicking to one of the two brothers and the need to apologize for accidentally insulting Calista.

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Zepha pushed the plate towards her.

"Just eat the chicken."

Callista shook her head, pushing the plate of fried chicken away. "No. I...I can't."

Zesha gave her a bewildered look. _"Why!?" _He asked exasperatedly, completely confused. "You were eating fried chicken three weeks ago, and now you won't even touch any fries...or hamburgers or anything. What's going on?"

She gave him a look, as if saying _Are you stupid?_

"Do you think I'm going to eat something with a gazillion calories?"

Zepha groaned at this, face-palming himself. "You have got to be kidding me-the dieting thing? Again?"

Calista was friends with the brothers Zesha Stryker and Zepha Stryker, sons of the lawyer Zangurak Stryker. This might be odd, considering that some of the people in Lazulis City thought them to be kind of weird and stuff. Calista, though, was cool with them...eighty-five to ninety percent of the time.

Today was not the eighty-five to ninety percent of the time.

"What?" Calista responded, glaring at him. "Unlike both of you who can probably sweat it off in a few hours, it takes me days to get it off..."

"Then just work out more often." Zepha muttered. "And eat healthy. It's not like you're getting fat or anything-"

Calista promptly kicked him in the crotch, obviously pissed off at him eluding to her possibly gaining weight even though he didn't mean it, and left the table. Zesha face-palmed himself while Zepha was groaning in pain.

_"Brother."_ He muttered quietly. "Never elude to calling a woman fat. Ever."

* * *

She refused to eat with them.

Well, it was pretty obvious _why._ But still, both brothers were becoming increasingly concerned for her. They didn't want her to deprive herself of something so tasty as fried chicken, but Zepha didn't want to get kicked in the crotch again.

So, the brothers tried to think of ways to convince her.

"We could sue her!"

"Brother, just because our adoptive father Zangurak is a lawyer does not mean we can sue her for not eating fried chicken! That's just really absurd and ridiculous!"

"But then what do we do...? Talk with her again?"

Zepha shrugged. "Well, yeah. I can't think of anything else."

Zesha gave him a look. "And _apologize _for implying the insult of calling her fat."

"But I didn't mean to-"

Zesha gave him another look. Zepha let out a scowl.

"Fine..."

* * *

"We're sorry." Zesha spoke quietly. The two were awkwardly standing by her as she sat in the mall, eating a beef and vegetable stir-fry she bought from the food court.

Calista raised an eyebrow, pausing in eating the stir fry. "Sorry for what?"

"Sorry for implying that I called you fat as well as bashing you earlier for your choice of not eating fried chicken." Zepha responded. He winced, looking downwards and closing his eyes, praying that he wouldn't be kicked in the crotch again. "I mean it. I really mean it. Please don't hurt me..."

Calista let out a sigh, putting her fork of stir-fry down to face them. "Look, I'm glad that you two came here to apologize, but you've got to respect my choices. Just because I'm staving off fried chicken for a while doesn't mean I'll do it forever, and if I do it's my choice." She then blushed a bit. "Though I guess the crotch-kicking might have been uncalled for, so I'm sorry about that..."

Zepha shook his head, blushing slightly. "No, it's fine, I probably deserved that. Scratch that, I really deserved that. It was rude of me..."

"And rude of me as well to bash you for your choices. My apologies as well." Zesha muttered quietly, also blushing slightly.

There was an awkward pause, before Zepha spoke up.

"Erm, do you want to go out with us tonight, Calista? Our adoptive dad's not home again, so we could go out for pizza or something."

Calista paused, before blushing. "...Honestly, I think I'm already craving fried chicken again."

Zesha chuckled a bit. "Then I suppose it's fried chicken tonight..."


	2. Accidents, Aftermath

_Accidents, Aftermath_

Summary: In which William Asthar runs into someone quite by accident and gets injured. In the aftermath, the person he ran into both goes home to her teasing roommates.

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He was going to miss the bus and end up waiting another thirty minutes for another one if he didn't cut through the alley, as much as he disliked it. So, therefore he was running at full speed and didn't have enough time to comprehend literally running into someone.

As soon as he collided with that someone, he ended up tripping and running into her, the woman screaming and whacking him in the back of his head with a heavy, blunt bag.

...And it really hurt. One hit from that was all it took from him to hit the ground face-first.

"Oh my gosh!" He heard her shout, before he sensed her getting on a knee to examine him. "Are you alive!? Can you hear me!? Are you even conscious!? I-I'm really sorry, I thought you were going to attack me or something but obviously you weren't intending that-"

Asthar tried to get up, getting on both knees before turning to his left to face the woman. She was obviously a bit younger than him, with wavy black hair that cascaded to her shoulders. Her eyes were a dark brown, like dirt in a garden, and her lips were a natural scarlet like the best roses-it was obvious that she didn't wear any makeup of the sort except for maybe mascara but that was it.

Conclusion? She was pretty. That was getting really obvious now.

But anyway, that didn't matter at the moment-his currently aching head was definitely the main priority...

"I-I'm fine, thanks...aside from my head hurting, but...rrgh!" He had to lean against the nearby wall while he was standing up-wow, whoever hit him seriously did a number on him. He couldn't remember the last time he got hurt this badly for sure.

"Wow...I really must have hurt you a lot...it doesn't look like you're bleeding." The woman winced. "I-I'm sorry. I hope I didn't give you a concussion by accident."

Asthar managed a smile at her. "It's alright, really. I think I'm better now."

The woman smiled a little at that. "That's good. My name is Azalea Tempest...erm, nice to meet you..." She trailed off awkwardly, clutching her heavy messenger bag with both hands.

Asthar grinned, facing her. "My name is William Asthar, Miss Tempest. It's nice to meet you..." He then paused, glancing at his watch. "Oh. Darn."

Azalea winced. "You missed the bus, didn't you? That's why you came down this alley-wait, oh no! I missed the bus, too!" Azalea glanced at her watch, wincing. "Aw, crap...well, that's just great...I'm really sorry..."

Asthar sweatdropped. "No, no, it's alright..." He chuckled a bit. "I mean, it's kind of an interesting part of our days to talk about to our peers in the future...I mean, it's not every day that I get attacked due to a misconception and that you get the beat the snot out of me..."

Azalea chuckeld sheepishly. "T-true.."

Then there was awkward silence.

Neither of them wanted to really break it, until Azalea spoke up, blusing slightly. "Erm, I guess I should probably go..."

"Oh, uh, right..." Asthar nodded quickly, awkwardly. "Erm, same with me...I'll talk to you later, I suppose?"

Azalea shrugged. "Er, sure. See you."

The two then left for their respective bus stops, still feeling how awkward their first meeting was.

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"Come on, Kresa, I told you-I'm sorry! I said it at least ten times now since I started this phone call!"

Azalea sighed as she walked into the apartment. Sebastian was obviously panicking as he was nearly yelling into the phone. He must have done something bad to piss off his girlfriend Kresa from outside of town if it was this bad. The blond apartment mate was currently looking quite frazzled. Meanwhile, another man with long, dark brown hair pulled back into a braid, obviously older than Sebastian and Azalea herself, was watching Sebastian with amusement flickering in his golden-amber eyes.

Azalea sighed. "I'm back, guys..."

The two men glanced at her for a moment, Sebastian awkwardly waving at Azalea before continuing to speak into the telephone.

"Look, look, let me speak. I'll make it up to you. I'll drive down to your town this Saturday, since I don't have work on that day. I'll drop by your house at eleven a.m. We can go out on a lunch date, or something...I know, I know, I won't stand you up like last Saturday, I'm really sorry...I love you babe, see you." Sebastian then put down the phone, a sigh escaping his throat as his grey eyes were somewhat filled with an exhausted relief. "Draven, I just barely saved myself from Kresa breaking up with me..."

The older man, Draven, chuckled a bit as he adjusted his braid. "That's what you get, Sebastian, when you piss your girlfriend off by standing her up for the third time in a row. You got lucky..."

Sebastian glared a little at Draven, before turning to Azalea. "Evening," He greeted quietly, trying to stay calm. "You're late coming back here for once. It's not like you..."

Azalea bit her lower lip as she put her messenger bag aside and took off her jean jacket, depositing it on a nearby chair. "I beat up some guy by accident on the way home in an attempt to take a shortcut through the alley..." She trailed off awkwardly.

Draven laughed at this, a smile forming on his face. "Seriously!? Azalea, you actually beat up someone? That's something I don't generally hear..."

"And it was you saying in our earlier conversations that I'm the most violent out of the three of us." Azalea muttered quietly. "First off, it was a complete accident, and second the said someone was Mr. Asthar. I was lucky that he's nicer than most office-working men I've encountered and that he didn't threaten to sue me."

Sebastian kind of stared. "It was Asthar!? You mean by _the_ Asthar, the guy who lost his wife and adopted Therius Hawkthorn after the incident of that serial killer running around and killing people ten years ago!? William Asthar?"

Azalea blinked in surprise. "It was that Asthar?"

"Asthar, eh?" Draven smirked at this. "My, if you got together with him you two would be quite the catch..."

"Shaddup, Draven. We only just met, it can be nothing like that." The florist responded, whacking him in the nose with her hand lightly. Draven blinked, putting a hand to his face. "Why are you messing with me, anyway? Don't you have enough on your hands with you being a funeral director and trying to hook up with Leia?"

Draven gave her a look. "First off, I have fun teasing you and Sebastian about relationships. Second, Leia and I are only _friends,_ and she just lost her husband a month ago due to a car accident. Anyone who has lost their loved one would need time to recover from that."

"As if her husband actually was truly in love with her. He used her as a trophy and you know it."

"He wasn't using her. He treated her like an absolute gentleman should and you know it!"

With that, the two just glared at each other. Sebastian coughed a bit to get their attention.

"By the way, isn't Halloween coming up soon? We should really think of costumes..."

Draven grinned, having suddenly forgotten about his disagreement with Azalea. "Really!? We NEED to figure out costumes!"

Azalea frowned. "Are you guys seven years old or something? Seriously?"

"No, seriously, we need to coordinate costumes like we have for the past couple of years ever since highschool! It's a TRADITION, Azalea! A TRADITION!"

Sebastian clamped his hand over Draven's mouth. "Pipe down! Do you want us getting in trouble with the rest of the people on our floor again like you did with the karaoke machine the one time?! I told you not to sing so loud for a reason!"

Draven winced as he removed Sebastian's hand from his mouth. "S-sorry..."

Azalea chuckled a bit as she watched the two. "Remember when our parents tried to get us to be the 'Three Musketeers' one Halloween? But we never got to it because we were so busy being in the school play together? Maybe we can do it this year!"

"Yeah, but who would be who?" Sebastian asked. "Who would be Aramis, Porthos and Athos...?"

"Hm.." Azalea paused. "I would probably be Aramis. Athos would probably suit Draven more, in my opinion, and you could be Porthos, Sebastian."

Draven chuckled at this. "Sounds great!" He paused, before speaking. "So...are we legit going to try to look like actual Musketeers from that time era in the story?"

"Um, yeah. Why not? It can't be that hard, can't it...?"

Sebastian winced. "Azalea...don't' underestimate the terrors of sewing costumes. Ever."

Azalea gave him a look. "You're saying that I'm underestimating the 'terrors' of sewing costumes? Seriously?"

"Yup."

"Well then," the florist declared, "We'll just have to see for ourselves of how daunting the challenge will be! If all three of us work together we can surely get it right..right?"

Draven sweatdropped. "Let's...hope so..."

Things were not going to be as easy as they seemed...

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**Author note: I now introduce the three out of five OCs that will be in this fanfic (the fourth one will come in later on): Draven Belladonna, Azalea Tempest and Sebastian Dylas! XD These three OCs were in my fanfic 'The Last Story: Fighting Against Fate' and will also make an appearance here in this fanfic, Pages of Life! XD So, here's some quick info on them specifically for this fanfic...**

**Azalea Tempest: Moved to Lazulis along with Draven and Sebastian three months prior to the fic to pursue work, and is now currently working as a florist.**

**Sebastian Dylas: Moved to Lazulis with Azalea and Draven three months prior to the fic, works as a translator**

**Draven Belladonna: Moved to Lazulis with Sebastian and Azalea three months prior to the fic, works as a funeral director**

**I hope you like them, and I hope you will review and read and enjoy! Thanks! XD **


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